Application story – automatic sleeve handling and storage system

Handling of sleeves for flexographic printing machines

CH System has just designed, and factory tested a complete new automatic sleeve handling and storage system.

As the variation is quite large in the flexible packaging and lidding materials for food, pharmaceutical and tobacco applications, many different sleeves are used in the production.

Today are sleeves often manual handled, stored across the production facilities with no real marking and logistic registering.

The manual handling of sleeves in the past caused several repetitive work movements for the operator’s and each sleeve represent a large investment both in cost and manhours, so an automatic storage and handling system was the solution for the future.

The new automatic system can store up to 1500 individual sleeves, each with a unique number and floating storage location.

The sleeves are stored vertically and vary in length, diameter and weight.  The heart of the new system is a 3-axis gantry robot located above the physical sleeve storage area of more than 100 m².

Utmost care is the key word for ensuring safe storage of the sleeves, which goes hand in hand with our gantry robot design with precision, repeatability and smooth handling.

The robot gripper is specially designed for the application both lifting on the upper part of the sleeve and supporting at the bottom of the sleeve.

Managing the project

Beside the gantry robot the project also included trolleys and a “washing machine” for the sleeves. The complete project with mechanical & electrical engineering and software programming is handled in-house at CH System. The whole system is factory tested in our workshop before site installation and handover.